


Last Hope of Dead Hearts (aka Unsanctioned Fraternization)

by xXLeondraXx



Category: Mass Effect Andromeda
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 16:13:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11338890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xXLeondraXx/pseuds/xXLeondraXx
Summary: I wanted a romance between my Ryder and Evfra. Since there wasn't one, I decided to write one.





	Last Hope of Dead Hearts (aka Unsanctioned Fraternization)

 

**Chapter 1**

 

Aya. Sovereign land of the angara. _This place is beautiful,_ Ryder thought to herself as she leaned her arms against the railing of one of the balconies and looked outward. The view was stunning, and the setting sun was casting shadows that seemed to give everything a stunningly ethereal depth.

_This is what home should’ve looked like,_ she thought, the idea threatening to cast a melancholy blanket over her enjoyment of the view and turn it bitter. She dipped her head down and rubbed her hands over her face. She’d been at this Pathfinder thing for months now. She’d managed to do some amazing things. Some things that some might think were impossible. Starting a terraforming engine on a planet so that it could again become livable? That was about as impossible as it got.

But it hadn’t made her job any easier. Most of the time she had no idea what she was doing. She felt like she was standing in a room with walls covered with buttons and pushing them with the hope something good would happen and she wouldn’t cause everything to come crashing down around her.

She didn’t even know how she’d managed to do as much as she had. She just knew that she couldn’t fail. It wasn’t an option. If she did…

Ryder took a deep breath through her nose then exhaled through her mouth in an attempt to beat down the thought. The hopes and dreams of the entire Initiative were riding on her shoulders. It was something she tried to not think about, afraid that the implications of the thought would crush her beneath its weight. How could one person be expected to handle all this? Sure, her team helped, but at the end of the day she had the distinct feeling that Jaal was the only one that actually believed in her.

Besides, they were the team. She was the Pathfinder. Everything they did in the field reflected directly back on her, not them. They had the easy job, mentally speaking. They had to follow, and she had to find the path for them.

“ _Ryder, did you hear the one about the deaf man that was hit by a train? Neither did he.”_

Ryder snorted a laugh at SAM’s dry attempt at humor. “SAM, what the hell was that?”

“ _You needed a pick me up,_ ” SAM replied. “ _I thought I would offer assistance._ _ **”**_

Ryder leaned her head against her fist as she continued to look out at the landscape. “Thanks, SAM. Was just thinking about the impossible task ahead of us.”

SAM was silent for a while before he spoke again. “ _Ryder, your father chose well when he picked you to succeed him_ ,” SAM said. “ _Had Cora taken over, I do not think things would have gone as well._ You _are the one that started the Vault on Eos._ ”

“Oh, come on, SAM,” she replied. “That was all you.”

“ _I could not have reached the consoles by myself,_ ” SAM replied. “ _You had the courage to throw yourself into the unknown without thought for your own safety to help others. Cora does not take such leaps._ ”

Ryder didn’t say anything as she listened to the AI.

“ _Being a Pathfinder takes more than planning. One must be able to improvise at a moment’s notice. To change plans, or to go in with nothing but a goal. Meeting the angara was not planned. While first contact was anticipated, only simple guidelines could be drafted for such an event. It is through your will and determination that the angara are now allies and not foes. You saved the scientists on Havarl. You saved the Moshae. The angara look to you as a symbol of what an alliance with the Nexus could be. They trust you, even if they do not fully trust the Nexus._

“ _I_ _do not_ _believe Cora could have accomplished this the way you have. She is not mentally prepared for a leadership role. She continues to search for someone in a place of leadership that has a plan she can follow. Your father knew this. I believe that is why he chose you._ ”

Ryder smiled and hummed a little. Having SAM in her head was like having her own personal motivational coach sometimes. “Thank you, SAM,” she said.

“ _Of course, Pathfinder. Remember that you are doing a good job,_ ” SAM replied, going silent again.

He was so quiet most times that Ryder often forgot that SAM was always there.

And that he was usually right.

Things were absolutely difficult right now. Nothing had gone according to Initiative plan. Hell, even the person that had _created_ the Andromeda Initiative was dead. But nothing was impossible. She’d already done several impossible things in the short time since she’d become the Pathfinder.

Saving the scientists on Havarl hadn’t been easy. Freeing them, yes, but the act of getting to them, not so much. Between the Roekaar, the wildlife and the plants it seemed like everything on that planet except for the rocks wanted to kill them. Even so, she’d managed to get her team to the scientists and get them out safe and unharmed.

And saving the Moshae was one of the most dangerous things she’d been through since coming to Andromeda that didn’t involve her being ripped out of a crashing shuttle and having her helmet smashed open. Even so, she’d managed to get her team through that, too, _and_ get the Moshae back to Aya.

It hadn’t been easy, and the angara wouldn’t have been able to do it by themselves. Despite her lack of training and the difficulty of her position, she’d overcome the odds. Like she’d told Evfra during their vid call, she got shit done.

Ryder’s head popped up off her hand when a thought hit her. _Evfra!_ For hours she’d been walking around the city. Talking to people, learning things, taking in the view and even sampling local food and drink. She'd had a startling number of angara extremely curious about touching her hair and skin and examining her hands. She’d been occupied at all times since stepping through the gates to the city.

With everything that’d been going on she’d yet to make her way to Resistance HQ. She needed to go there anyway to get a copy of the angaran laws regarding war from the arbiter.

Ryder pushed away from the railing and looked around. The first time she’d been to resistance HQ she’d gone a different way than this. However the layout of the city seemed pretty simple. If she just walked in the opposite direction of the docks she knew she’d get there eventually.

And right she was. She hadn’t had to walk far before she recognized the building. With all its solar umbrellas and beautiful green glass windows, it was an easily recognizable building. Plus the two armed and armored angara sporting resistance colors stationed outside the door gave it away. Though they wore helmets she could feel their eyes on her as she walked toward the stairs to the building and she didn’t miss the way one of them hefted his rifle up slightly as she walked past.

_Head high, Maria,_ she told herself as she walked past the guards. _You saved the Moshae. You’ve earned the right to be here._ She entered the building, unsure of the reception she would get there. Many of the citizens of Aya around the docks, market and tavetaan had been grateful to her or shocked that she had managed to save the Moshae.

But this wasn’t the market. This was Resistance HQ. These people had seen the worst of the kett. Even if they weren’t an official military, they were soldiers. Fighters. They had more reason than any to be weary of aliens. They had seen what aliens could do to them. What they _did_ do to them every day.

She expected dirty looks. Sidelong glances. Mistrust.

She opened the door and stepped into the HQ. She was barely three steps inside before most of the angara in her line of sight turned and looked at her.

Their bright eyes spoke volumes as she walked past them. Mistrust nearly buried completely under cautious optimism. That’s what she saw from them, and it was more than she was expecting. She was even more surprised when one, who looked to be an older male, walked up and thanked her for saving the Moshae.

She paused to get the angaran laws of war from the arbiter and thanked him. _Lord I’ve got a lot of reading ahead of me,_ she thought as she tucked the data pad away and turned toward the familiar door. Behind it was the command center for the entire angaran Resistance.

And in there, was their leader.

Evfra De Tershaav. Thus far she’d only spoken to him twice: Once when they first landed on Aya and again after she’d helped the scientists on Havarl. He was a stern man if she’d ever known one. Whereas Jaal was friendly, open and loved a good joke, Evfra was analytical. Calculating. She saw it in his eyes the first time she’d met him. The gears in his head were ever turning. No doubt while he’d been talking to her he’d also been planning troop movements and going over reports he’d read earlier in the day.

He came off hard and cold unlike Jaal, who was always friendly and warm. Jaal was a kitten compared to Evfra’s falcon-like demeanor. But like there was more to a falcon than a set of sharp talons and piercing, predatory eyes, there was more to Evfra.

The first meeting with him he’d been sympathetic to the plight of her people. He’d even seemed upset, or perhaps slightly disturbed, that he couldn’t help. But he’d also been on edge. He hadn’t wanted her there. He’d wanted her to turn around and forget she’d ever seen Aya.

But after she’d saved the scientists on Havarl, his tone had changed. She’d shown that she could give selflessly to help his people. His voice still had that same dull, uninterested tone but his words were enough. And revealing she had an AI, and that SAM was a part of her, had impressed him quite possibly more than anything else had. There was trust there now. Jaal had confirmed as much.

But trust was a fickle thing. Hard to earn and easy to lose. She couldn’t let herself become complacent. If her people were going to live peacefully with the angara she needed to keep the trust going. Like it or not she’d become a representative for the entire Initiative in Andromeda. The angara would look to her for the measure of her people.

Now her job was proving to the angara, and especially to Evfra, that she and the Nexus were worthy of continued trust. And part of maintaining trust was maintaining contact. It wouldn’t look good if she left Aya without talking to him.

Ryder squared her shoulders and steeled herself. From what Jaal had been telling her about him, Evfra was a man that inspired either fear or respect in everyone around him. She’d gotten that feeling from him during their first meeting. His eyes were so intense they no doubt made people squirm in place until they looked away and ceded dominance to him.

But his eyes were no match for the piercing, judgmental gaze of her father and she’d been toe to toe with that man more times than she could count. Besides, the Ryders were genetically stubborn with a penchant for giving no quarter.

She walked through the door, her eyes immediately going to the table at the far end. A large male angara was standing there, but beyond his bulk she recognized Evfra. She walked into the room, the unknown angara’s voice coming to her ear.

“The kett are angry. Or at least the archon is,” he unknown male said.

“More than usual?” Evfra’s voice. She’d recognize it anywhere. “About what, specifically?” he asked, clearly wanting to get to the point.

“Definitely about the Moshae being rescued. They’re still using adaptive encryption, but from what I can tell, things are ugly. Someone will be sacrificed to this anger at this rate."

“Good. Fewer kett to deal with,” Evfra replied simply.

The angara inclined his head to Evfra. He turned around and started to walk away but jolted to a stop when he saw Ryder, as though her sudden presence had startled him.

Which it probably had. She doubted an average day at Resistance HQ included having a pink-haired human show up in the command center unannounced.

She smiled at the angara. “Lovely sunsets here on Aya,” she said as she stepped past him, earning a baffled look from the confused angara.

Evfra's eyes were locked on Ryder as she moved closer, analyzing her every move. He’d been watching her since she walked into the room. The woman moved with confidence. Fluidity. She moved like she belonged here.

He wasn’t sure if he should be annoyed or impressed by her bravado. She certainly didn’t carry herself like the rest of her crew of aliens. The other female human rubbed him the wrong way. There was something about her. Like she was hiding something. He didn’t like that. And the male human reminded him of Jaal; too friendly. Talked too much.

But this one… there was something different about this one. Something… visceral. Commanding. A little arrogant.

Not too much unlike himself.

And she was honest. During their vid call she didn’t have to tell him about her AI. And even if she did, she hadn’t needed to let him know that it was physically connected to her. From Jaal’s reports he'd learned that this AI, this SAM as the aliens called it, was directly attached to her brain in some form or another.

She could have kept that all to herself in the vid call. But she hadn't. And she hadn’t backed down from him in the entirety of the conversation. Never gave him the impression that she was bowing or trying to pacify him with what she said.

“Pathfinder,” he said as she moved to stand on the other side of his desk.

“Commander,” she replied, taking in his imposing stature. He stood with his arms crossed over his broad chest, leaning back slightly as he stared at her pointedly. Watching her every move.

Calculating. His cold blue eyes said it all. The two hadn’t interacted much. He was still trying to get a feel for her. Suss out what she was really like. Figure out what made her tick. She felt like she was tip-toeing a razor thin line of trust with him. But she wouldn’t let it daunt her or color the way she acted around him. Despite what he might think, she wasn’t just putting on a show to get him to trust her. Her actions reflected who she was, and her actions had gained his trust.

She just needed to remind herself of that. _Just be you._

“I expect you to take good care of Jaal out there,” Evfra said. His voice was calm and smooth on the surface, though under it she could feel a warning.

“I have from the first day,” Ryder replied. “I’m sure he’ll continue to return the favor.”

“Don’t worry about him. You saved the Moshae,” he said. His tone turned up at that, sounding almost as if he were in awe of the fact that she _had_ saved Moshae Sjefa. “That earned his loyalty.” Evfra sighed and shook his head slightly. “Still wrapping my head around what you found at the kett facility. That… ‘exaltation’.” He growled the last word. She could practically hear the revulsion in his tone, as though the word was bitter and bit his tongue like sour bile. But at the same time, he sounded tired. Like he’d been tossing the idea around in his mind all day, trying to figure it out. To make some sense of it all.

She could only imagine his thoughts on it. She’d heard other angara talking about it already. Most were horrified that they’d been killing their own kind. But they were just enacting the command of another. Evfra was the one that had been sending them out to kill the kett for years. Not only that, but whole Resistance cells had been captured by the kett in the past. Likely to be exalted.

She had no doubt that these thoughts had crossed his mind.

“There’s a human saying: ‘Knowledge is power’. The more we understand about the kett, the easier it’ll be to hurt them,” Ryder said unfalteringly.

“The more I know, the more I _want_ to hurt them,” Evfra growled in agreement as fire snapped behind his blue eyes. He sounded ready to pick up a rifle and taste kett blood. And she couldn’t blame him.

“What happened in that place was beyond disgusting,” she replied. In her mind she could still hear the angara’s distressed, gurgled cries. Still hear the sound of bone snapping and cracking as his body spasmed and turned black as pitch. Turning him into something different. Something monstrous.

A husk of his former self.

Now that she thought about it, it was eerily similar to something from back in the Milky Way.

“Believe it or not, I can empathize,” Ryder said.

Evfra furrowed his brow at that. He couldn’t believe the nerve of this human. “How could you possibly be able to do that?” Evfra growled. “Have _you_ ever seen _your_ people turned into monsters that fight for their captors?”

“Yes, actually. Back in the Milky Way when I was serving with the Alliance.”

Evfra cocked his head a little in confusion. "What alliance?"

"The Alliance was the name for the human military," she replied. "I served in the Peacekeeping corps as a recon specialist for a few years."

Evfra let out a little grunt at that. Unlike the other female human, he wouldn't have pegged Ryder as former military. Though her previous position of a recon specialist interested him. That could be useful moving forward, and it was certainly good skill set for her current position as Pathfinder.

"I did a lot of work scouting prothean ruins for traps and other dangers. If it came up clear they brought in the researches and we kept them safe from any future danger."

"What were these 'prothean ruins'?" Evfra asked.

"Basically the Milky Way equivalent to the remnant ruins here, except fifty thousand years old instead of a few hundred. Also remarkably harder to understand. But going back to the original topic, there were these things called the geth, this race of AI. Somehow they got their hands on these things the Alliance started calling 'dragon teeth'. The geth would take humans, usually alive, and impale them right through the middle on these spikes. Then it would... change them somehow. Replace a bunch of their flesh and nerves with tech. When the transformation was done they'd get off the spikes and attack anything that wasn't them or the geth. Big difference between exaltation and the dragon teeth is you could still tell the husks had been human. Could still see their individual faces. With the kett they at least don't look like angara anymore."

"And you saw this happen yourself?" Evfra asked. What she was describing sounded horrific. He was already having a hard time imagining exaltation. These dragon teeth sounded horrendous in their own rights.

"Once," Ryder replied. "There was blood everywhere. I'll never forget the sound of the spike going through that guy's body. I didn't sleep well for months after that. It would've been one thing if the guy had been dead when they impaled him or if he died fast, but he was alive. And he died slow. Now we have the kett and exaltation, and I saw that too. Same idea behind both; take your enemy and turn them against each other in the most complete and terrible way."

Evfra stared at Ryder contemplatively, no words passing between them.

Ryder couldn't help but notice the way Evfra's eyes darted about this way and that as he stared down at her. It was almost like he didn't know where to look. What facial feature to focus on while she spoke. And it wasn't just Evfra. She noticed that most of the angara she spoke to did the same thing. She wondered if they did that while talking to other angara or if it was because they didn't know what to look at on a human while having a conversation. What was considered polite or correct? Without knowing the 'etiquette' behind where to look perhaps they just bounced their eyes from one facial feature to the next to avoid offense.

"Seems like you might understand exaltation better than we do," he finally said.

"Not really," Ryder replied truthfully. "Point wasn't to prove I know more than you. Just to show that humans might have more in common with the angara than it might seem."

_It certainly seems that way,_ Evfra thought. He shifted his weight a bit onto his other leg. "Why are you here?" he asked. He still had no idea why she'd shown up here without being asked.

"That depends on what you mean by 'here', because that could mean several things, all with a different answer."

Evfra almost smirked at that.

Almost.

"Why are you in this room?" he asked more specifically.

"I know Jaal gave you a mission report about what happened with the Moshae, but I thought I'd come by and see if you wanted any additional information."

"Why would I want that from you?" he asked.

"Because he might be one of yours, but while on that mission he was under _my_ command," Ryder replied firmly. "So from one commander to another I thought I'd do you the courtesy of offering a second report."

Evfra grunted a bit at that. He had to admit; he liked how this human's mind worked. He hadn't known what to expect her answer to be, but it wasn't that. "Jaal's report was enough," he said.

"Well, barring that, if you have the time could I ask you a few things? Pick your brain a little."

Evfra frowned. "Do what?" he asked, sounding confused and perhaps a little disturbed.

"Sorry. Idiom," Ryder said, pinching the bridge of her nose. _I've really gotta stop doing that._ "Just means ask some questions and get some answers," she clarified, looking back at him.

"Depends on what you're asking."

"Well you've been fighting the kett for a long time. I could use some advice."

Evfra furrowed his brow a bit and eyed her wearily. "You're war's different from ours," he said after a few terse moments, as though questioning why she would ask that in the first place.

"Maybe, but war is war and it doesn't change the fact that we're fighting an enemy we aren't prepared to fight."

"Wouldn't matter if you were," he said matter-of-factly. "The kett aren't a conventional enemy."

"Any information you could give me helps," Ryder replied. "The fights might be different but a kett is still a kett."

"True enough," Evfra said, his voice sounding dull and uninterested. "Ask away."

"Alright. Do you have any idea where the kett came from? Where their homeworld might be?" she asked. Square one. Maybe knowing where they came from would help find a weakness.

"Each of our colonies heard a different story. I doubt _any_ were true. 'They came from far away'. That's all we know," Evfra replied simply.

"Ever try to follow a kett ship? See where it goes?" she asked. Though she had a feeling she knew the answer to that already.

"Of _course_ we did," he replied as though insulted she thought they were stupid enough to have not tried that, his eyes flaring. He paused and took a breath. "Wherever 'home' is, they don't visit," he finished, his tone even and dull once again.

"Alright. Then do the kett have a favorite strategy? Something we can exploit?"

"They switch tactics _constantly_. Almost capricious about it.” Evfra took in a breath tinged with the strange rasp or purr that all angara seemed to poses when they spoke and breathed. “Makes them unpredictable.”

Ryder couldn't help but think he sounded almost… impressed. Not that she could blame him. He was a tactician, after all. An enemy that changed tactics so often that he couldn't keep up? You didn't have to like the kett to respect that.

"They aren't gods. They must have _some_ weakness," Ryder said. She needed _something_. Anything.

"They're vulnerable to brute force. That's enough."

_Shoot them dead,_ she thought to herself. _That's a pretty damn human view of the situation._ But after asking about if the angara had tried to follow a kett ship and his reaction to it, she wasn't about to offend him again by saying that aloud. True though it may be.

"Ok. Is there something they care about that can be used against them?"

Evfra shrugged. "Slaves. Resources. Power. Same as any conqueror," he replied as drolly as if he were prattling off a list from the top of his head.

_He's either being deliberately unhelpful or he doesn't know. There has to be more to it than that._ "There's no way the kett are that cut and dry. You didn't see the exaltation process. They treat it like religion. Called their facility a church and acted like they were giving the angara a blessed gift."

Evfra noticeably bristled at that. He furrowed his brow and stood up straighter, taking a few steps closer to the desk that separated the two of them and leering down at her. "They convert us against our will. That's not religion. It's genocide," he growled angrily with a bitter laugh, his words practically making him bare his teeth at her. The bridge of his nose furrowed in distaste as his eyes glared daggers at her.

Ryder could nearly feel the anger and aura of danger radiating from him. He looked about ready to strike something and it made her wonder if the angaran commander had a temper or if he was just putting on a show. His eyes had even stopped flitting this way and that and were now solely focused on her eyes. Like he was trying to stare straight into her. Make her scared or uncomfortable.

She wouldn't be shocked if it was a little of both, but if he wanted to scare her he'd have to try much harder. She took a step closer and returned his glare unwaveringly, standing firm with her arms crossed over her ribs. _Try harder, commander. I don't back down easily._

Evfra eyed Ryder judiciously. She hadn't shrunk away. If anything she was blatantly staring him down, waiting for him to make the next move.

This human was full of surprises.

When he saw something off out of the corner of his eye Evfra turned his head. One of the comm officers was staring at the two of them. Evfra pinned the man with a menacing glare. The officer's eyes went wide before he quickly turned away to face his screen, his head lowered.

Evfra looked back at Ryder once more. _She has guts,_ he thought, relaxing his posture a bit and leaning back, still staring at her. A look was usually all he needed to give someone to get them back in line and remind them who was in charge. But not her. She stared into his eyes unfalteringly, refusing to back down. Challenging him with her defiance.

Paaran was one of the only other people he knew that could stand up to him like that.

“Every culture has its purpose. _Theirs_ is to take whatever they want,” he said bitterly.

Ryder eased the tension in her shoulders when Evfra relaxed back into his usual stance, but the implication of his words hung heavy between them like a thick stage curtain. It seemed to her like he  
wasn't _just_ talking about the kett with his last statement. A glance between the lines suggested he was still on edge about the Initiative. He hadn't outright said it, but she knew passive aggression when she heard it.

She knew Evfra trusted her. Jaal had said so himself and Evfra may as well have said it too. If he didn't, there was no way he'd let her and her crew walk around Aya without armed escorts like the first time she had entered the city. Even though she was still fairly sure he didn't like her.

But the Initiative as a whole was a different matter. Evfra was smart. He'd be able to see better than most that she and her crew weren't representative of everyone in the Initiative. He knew _her_. He didn't know Tann or Addison.

And when the day came that he inevitably met their acquaintance she could only hope that they didn't completely destroy relations with the Resistance with their respective glory hounding and pretentiously superior attitudes.

"Is it too much for me to hope that the Initiative is making a good impression?" she asked.

"'The Initiative'," Evfra parroted back with a curt laugh as though the very thought was a cosmic joke. "Sounds _so_ unthreatening. Like a city planner meeting," he said, his voice sarcastic and accusatory.

Ryder shrugged nonchalantly. "That's kind of what it's meant to be." She raised a brow when she saw Evfra actually roll his eyes at that.

"City planners don't walk around in battle armor with rifles on their shoulder," he retorted.

"Depends on the city," Ryder replied dryly. "You didn't see the Terminus systems back in the Milky Way. If you _weren't_ walking around with at least a pistol on your hip, something was wrong with you. But I digress. Point is, we traveled through dark space to make a better life here than what we left behind."

Evfra leaned forward and leered down at her. "That's what invaders always say. At first."

"We're not invaders. We're settlers."

"Of course," he replied as he returned to his usual stance, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Ryder knew a dead end when she saw one. There wasn't a thing she could say to change Evfra's mind about the Initiative. He was a man of action, not words. Anyone could say anything, but not everyone could prove what they said with their actions.

A change of subject, then. She still had other inquiries anyway.

"Well then, moving on. Is the Resistance all the angara have in terms of fighting strength? No official military?" Ryder asked. Perhaps talking about Evfra's cause would settle him down a little. He looked irritated.

Then again, that _could_ just be his face.

Evfra grunted a little. "Lost our fleets and armies decades ago. Kett, mostly. The rest fell to... internal strife. We kept fighting but our civilians were disorganized. Poorly supplied. Leaderless. Decades of aimless defiance got us nowhere."

"Until _you_ came along," she said.

"I had to make the Resistance real," Evfra replied, determination in his voice and eyes. "My people needed to know that they had a force that could protect them from the kett. That there was hope."

Ryder could tell from his tone and the way he held himself how proud and determined he was when it came to the Resistance. Despite his cold exterior, this was a man that cared deeply about his people.

From talking to Jaal, she'd learned a few things about Evfra. According to him, his commander was a man of single-minded dedication to the Resistance. He'd raised the Resistance up out of nothing after the kett had taken his entire family away from him. It was an idea she could understand herself. Though she hadn't chosen to be the Pathfinder, like Evfra had chosen to raise the Resistance up out of the muck, had it not been for the death of her father and near loss of her brother she wasn't sure she would have ever found the strength to do everything she did.

For them, for their memory, she would fight until her last breath to keep the Initiative from dying.

Then again, that was Jaal's take on Evfra. "How'd you end up in charge of the whole Resistance?" she asked.

"Nothing left to lose," Evfra replied solemnly, the shine fading from his eyes, leaving them dead and hollow. "My family was rounded up into a kett slave camp. Last contact I had with any of them was ten years ago."

Ryder's heart clenched at the tone Evfra's voice had taken. He sounded... sad. Almost lost.

_So it's true,_ she thought. Jaal had told her as much himself, but hearing Evfra say it was different. His choice to isolate himself, to command and never befriend, made perfect sense now. She could see it in his eyes. The loss of his family had ripped out part of his soul. Like as not Evfra refused to get close to anybody as a way to protect himself from the pain of having someone he cared about die.

Like Jaal had said, it was just his way.

Her heart ached for the man before her, but she didn't let it show. She didn't want Evfra to mistake her sympathy for pity. In all honesty she wanted to hug him and tell him it would all be okay, but she had a sneaking suspicion that she and her crew would be forcibly thrown off Aya if she attempted that.

"It's possible that they could still be alive somewhere," Ryder said. If he'd never found their bodies there was always the possibility. Though it could also be possible that his entire family had been turned into kett long ago. Then possibly killed in fights with the very Resistance that Evfra commanded.

"Didn't figure _you_ for an optimist," Evfra replied. He sounded resigned. Like he'd accepted long ago that his family was dead and he didn't want to think about it any other way.

"Really?" Ryder asked with a chuckle. "I left everything I knew to come here and make a better life than what I had. If that isn't optimistic, I don't know what is."

Evfra grunted. "Suppose that's true."

"So what success have you had against the kett?" Ryder asked, deciding to steer the conversation toward something a little less heavy than the possible eradication of the Tershaav family.

"Enemy casualties are up 600% in three years," Evfra replied as though he'd rehearsed and recited that same line time and time again. "But that's just a number. What it means is more important. Every time we destroy a facility, take out a warship, we give our people hope," he continued, his voice going from bland to passionate.

"Maybe we can bolster those numbers," Ryder said. "You're not fighting alone anymore after all."

Evfra looked her up and down, pausing for a few moments as he examined her with a critical eye. He had to admit that Ryder was far more capable than he initially gave her credit for. He knew she had the potential to change things. He trusted her, but only just.

It was the rest of this 'Initiative' of hers that he didn't trust. He knew what Ryder's motive for helping them was. But he didn't know the Initiative. All he knew was what Ryder said they wanted. But she was just one of thousands. And according to all reports she wasn't one of the leaders. She was the one the leaders dispatched.

Though from what he'd seen of her he had the distinct feeling that she wasn't one to just follow blindly. She had her set of principles and she followed them. He'd seen her kind before. In the Resistance personalities like her rose through the ranks and into positions of leadership faster than any other.

"We'll see," he finally said tentatively.

_Should've seen that coming._ "If it isn't hush-hush, could you tell me how the Resistance is organized?"

"Loosely," Evfra replied with a small shrug. "We operate in cells. Independent strike teams have better odds. If the kett capture a cell, it doesn't compromise the rest," he said, his tone taking on an ever so slightly lighter tone and sounding less bland than usual.

Ryder nodded. "Smart. Was that your idea?"

"Yes."

"Hm." Ryder glanced to her side when she saw movement, but it was just an angara passing a data pad along to one of the comm officers. She noticed that at Resistance HQ, everyone wore the same colors. Gray, black and teal. But that wasn't the only armor she'd seen around the city. She'd seen others walking around fully armed and armored that didn't sport the same colors as everyone else at HQ.

"I've seen armed people walking around the city, but they weren't sporting the same colors as everyone here. I take it they aren't Resistance?" she asked, looking back at Evfra.

"Aya police" Evfra replied with a distasteful sneer. " _Purely_ ornamental. Gives us the appearance of civilization."

Ryder could tell by his tone and the way his nose crinkled that his last sentence was not his own words. "I take it you don't think they're necessary."

"If things go bad, the Resistance will handle it," he said simply.

"Wouldn't that technically be up to Governor Paaran?" she asked.

Evfra grunted angrily in response and gave her one of the most impressive scowls she'd ever seen in her life. She was half surprised that his face didn't collapse in on itself.

His words also gave her the feeling that he and Paaran had a bit of a love/hate relationship. From what Paaran had told her already the two of them rarely agreed on policy and how the city should be run. They bickered and debated frequently, but she said that at a minimum they respected each other. At least from Paaran's point of view.

"Seems to be a little tension between you and Paaran. I already know what she thinks of _you_ , but what do you think of _her_?" Ryder asked.

"She governs Aya. Not the Resistance," Evfra replied, standing a little taller. It wasn't exactly the answer she was looking for, but it was telling nonetheless. Evfra likely had all sorts of people think that he and the Resistance were on Paaran's leash. He wanted to draw a line in the sand on the matter. Make sure she knew who was in charge of what.

"Way to avoid the question. Is there some kind of history between you two?" Ryder asked. It felt like there should be more to it than what she'd learned about them so far.

"I can always count on Paaran to offer a... spirited argument," Evfra replied

Ryder raised her brow at the sudden suggestive tone that had entered his voice. Not quite breathy, but not quite normal. Oh yeah. There was _something_ between the two of them other than arguments regarding policy. Though from the sound of his voice, she didn't have a doubt in her mind that the debates sometimes got a little... heated.

But knowing what she knew about Evfra, she didn't suspect any complicated emotions were fostered between the two of them. She wasn't sure about in angaran culture, but in human culture it wasn't unheard of for two people in positions of power to get together now and again to... alleviate stress.

"Sounds like you respect her," Ryder said, deciding not to open the can of worms that could be asking Evfra if he was giving it to the governor of Aya.

Evfra couldn't help but wonder what was going through that human's head when he saw a sly grin spread across her face. "She holds her own," he said, choosing to ignore it. "Not many people do."

Against me. He didn't say it, but he didn't have to. Ryder could see it on his face and hear it in his words. A man of respect and fear. That was who Evfra was. It would make sense for him to respect anyone with the backbone to stand up to him. Something that was probably difficult for most.

No one would deny that Evfra had a powerful presence. There was something about him that seemed inherently dangerous. He oozed strength and command from every last part of his body. And there was a lot of body there. Evfra was a mountain of an angara; tall in stature and broad through the chest and shoulders. He stood with absolute confidence and his eyes were sharp and hard as steel.

Evfra was an alpha male if Ryder had ever seen one. He could probably make a krogan warlord back down with a look alone, the long scars on his face only adding to his air of danger and mystery.

The hairs on the back of Ryder's neck stood on end when she felt a sudden stirring in her loins as she mused on the powerful atmosphere and physical build of the angaran commander. _Nope! Shut that shit down_ right _now_ , she thought to herself. Now wasn't the time for that. _Never_ was the time for that. _Especially_ not in relation to Evfra.

_Ok. Time to get my mind off that. Next question. Uh...._ "So, what's _your_ story, Evfra?" she asked. She didn't expect to get anything out of him by asking that. He was a closed-off and isolated man. Granted he had told her that his family had been taken, but he'd offered no details. Perhaps he'd only said it to begin with because it was a matter of public knowledge.

Evfra squared his shoulders and looked down at her pointedly. "You're _not_ getting my personnel file," he said bluntly. It seemed like he had just slammed a wall down on the particular topic of conversation before it had really even started.

_Jaal was right. He really_ does _try and keep people away,_ Ryder thought. He'd shut that down so fast it nearly made her head spin. Still, that just made her want to see if she could push the subject a little further. "I'd just like to know a little about who I'm going to be working with," she replied, trying to make her tone passive and a little apologetic without coming across as meek.

Evfra let out a strange rumble, his face turning dark. Uncrossing his arms he stood to his full height and started to walk around the side of his desk without breaking eye contact with her. He hadn't been bouncing his eyes like he had been earlier. He kept his eyes squarely on hers, like he was trying to burn two holes directly into her skull.

"You want to know what it's like being me?" he growled as he rounded the edge of the desk and stalked toward her. He stopped in front of her, crossing his arms again and leering down at her.

Ryder had to crane her head to look up at him. Standing tall as he was she was only eye level with what would be the collar bone on a human. He was testing her again. He had been this entire conversation. Trying to see if he could do something to make her back down. The rest of his attempts had failed, but before the desk had been between them. Neither could touch the other over the desk.

So he was trying something new. Getting in close. Showing her how small she was compared to him. Trying to smother her will with his own.

Ryder locked her jaw stubbornly and stared up into his icy eyes, returning his glare tit for tat. Despite probably weighing the equivalent of two of her and being as large and imposing as he was, she felt no fear. Only a strange sort of exhilaration at his nearness. She felt small with him looming over her, but it only made her want to stand firm and defiant.

"I wake up every morning to fight a war. I send people to kill, and _die_." He cocked his head the slightest bit. "If I'm lucky, there are more dead kett than Resistance when I go to sleep."

"That's a hell of a burden," Ryder replied, her voice cool and collected.

"I'm sure you would know all about it," he scoffed.

Ryder furrowed her brow at his poisonously sarcastic tone. It rubbed her just the wrong way. She struggled every day with her own responsibilities and she'd be damned if she was written off so easily.

"You think you're the only one with those problems?" she growled. Frowning up at him she stepped closer until she was almost literally toe to toe with him. She was so close she could smell his exotic scent and feel his breath on her face as he glared down at her.

The pair were so intent on their battle of wills they didn't notice that everyone in the command center had stopped what they were doing to turn and watch them. Several angara had even walked into the room to watch, passing concerned glances between each other.

"Over 100,000 people joined the Initiative. Five arks. Five Pathfinders. _Nothing_ panned out the way it was supposed to. The golden worlds we found are dead or dying. All the arks are separated. The people that are here are either still in stasis or facing starvation. Being the only Pathfinder the Nexus has right now, it lands squarely on _my_ shoulders to save everyone from starvation, start massive terraforming engines to make these dying worlds livable, find decent locations for outposts so we don't _die_ floating in space, and go out and find our 80,000 missing people before they starve, crash and die against the scourge, or get captured by the kett.

"I didn't even train for the _basic_ role of Pathfinder, not to mention the rest of it. This was all dropped in my lap when my father, the only parent I had left, _died_ so that I didn't have to."

Evfra's brow twitched at the fury and pain in her eyes when she spoke of her father. He knew that pain all too well.

"Every day I wake up I dread the email that says  our only functional outpost was attacked and everyone's dead because  _I_ didn't do good enough at a job I'm learning how to do as I go.  _You_ at the very least send out people that are combatants. They  _know_ they may never come home.  _My_ word can send  _dozens_ of civilians walking straight into a death trap. And unlike your people,  _we_ can't retreat. We're here  _permanently_ . And if I fail and nobody can find any of the other Pathfinders, if they're still even alive, then I just killed 100,000 people, nearly all of whom didn't sign up to die. Everyone in the Initiative did the  _exact_ opposite. They signed on to  _live_ .

"And now, on top of all of that, I'm helping  _your_ people fight the kett with the hope that  _your_ people can help  _my_ people not die on some backwater planet on in the black void of space. You think  _your_ job is stressful? At least you aren't trying to single-handedly prove to the entirety of a new species that your people are worth trusting."

Evfra continued to stare down at her, his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. She hadn't backed down. She hadn't so much as flinched when he moved closer to her. He thought some of her bravado merely stemmed from there being a desk that separated him from getting too close to her. But, not for the first time, he had been wrong about her.

She had no fear. Not of the kett, and certainly not of him. He examined her closely, his eyes searching her face. There was something about this alien. She was young. Her eyes still burned with hope and fire. And she was at least somewhat brash and arrogant.

Ever so slightly, Evfra's face and posture relaxed. "You have spirit and spit, Ryder. I'll give you that much. Not unlike me at your age." Her words and the way she had spoken, with passion and anger.... He'd never thought of her position like that. In fact he never really thought about her position at all. With everything going on in his own day to day that he needed to take care of and oversee he hardly spared any time to think about her. But he was thinking now.

She was... fascinating. And compelling in a way that she should not be to him. Evfra clenched his jaw at the thought. There was something about her. Something that almost... called to him.

He didn't like it.

“Enough personal discussion,” he growled, sounding uncomfortable. He moved back a couple steps. "Did you need something else?"

_He called me by my name, not my title, and backed away first. That means something. Respect, maybe,_ Ryder thought to herself. Her own posture relaxed, letting the tension out of her shoulders. She tried to find some emotion on his face, but he betrayed nothing of what he might be feeling. His features were stoic once again, as though chiseled from stone.

"Yes, actually," she said when a thought came to her. "Is there a med bay or clinic around here?"

"Yes. Why?" Evfra asked, his voice sounding distant and disinterested once more.

"You want me to take good care of Jaal? Then I need information about angaran physiology that I can send back to our doctor on the Tempest. If he takes a hit while under my command I need to make sure Lexi is able to patch him up."

"Go out the door then to the left, down both sets of stairs. It'll be the large door in front of you," Evfra replied.

"Alright. I'll let you get back to work," Ryder said.

"Good," Evfra grunted in response.

Ryder inclined her head to the large angara before turning to leave, noticing as a couple of the angara in the room quickly turned away. She smirked to herself. No doubt they had been anxiously watching she and Evfra's confrontation, waiting to see what would happen. It had to have been quite the sight: A small, pink-haired alien squaring off with their commander.

She wondered if any of them had placed bets on what was going to happen. The idea almost made her laugh even as she could feel Evfra's eyes on her back as she walked away.

 

\---

 

Darkness. It was all Evfra could see as he laid in bed that night, staring up blankly at the ceiling with dull, tired eyes. But he couldn't sleep. He'd tried for hours but his mind wouldn't silence itself. Thoughts bounced around the inside of his skull like bullets on a battlefield, keeping him from the sweet embrace of rest.

He rubbed his hands over his face, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes until bright starbursts of color flashed behind his eyelids. What Ryder had found out about exaltation haunted his mind.

His people. That which he fought for, turned into the very enemy he fought to protect them from.

But that wasn't what tormented him and kept him from sleep. A kett was a kett. It didn't matter if they used to be angara. They weren't anymore. He still had to fight them.

But his family....

His heart seized in pain at the thought of his family, everyone he had ever loved and cared for, being turned into kett. The very idea chilled his insides and made his guts feel as though they were filled with rocks.

He took a deep breath and held it in for a few moments before letting it back out, trying to calm his frayed nerves and racing heart. He'd been thinking about this since Jaal had given him his mission report. But he'd refused to dwell on the idea while he was working. Too much was at stake for him to let his mind wander.

But now everything was quiet and he was alone with his thoughts. Too alone. And they filled his head like a rampaging river that swept all away before it.

He flexed his jaw, clenching and unclenching his teeth as he tried to beat the thoughts into silent submission. He took another steadying breath, feeling his shoulders trembling with tension and stress. But he couldn't calm down. In the darkness behind his eyelids all he could see were the faces of his family warping into kett.

After losing his family he'd poured everything he had into the Resistance. He funneled his pain and rage into strength and made the Resistance a force to be reckoned with. He didn't want anyone to face the loss that he had. He wanted the kett to pay for all the families they had ripped apart, and save any angara he could from their fiendish clutches.

During the first major raid he'd led against a kett slave camp, he'd been hoping to find his family among the rescued angara. After they'd all been freed he'd searched among them for days while each and every one of them was identified and their families contacted.

But by the time every angara had been returned home, not a single Tershaav had been among them. After he and the Resistance liberated a few more camps with no signs of his family, he'd given up all hope of ever finding them.

Evfra thought back to Jaals' report. In it he'd stated that the angara he'd seen looked like they _wanted_ to be there. That some of them had refused to leave when the Resistance team tried to get them all out. No sane angara would want that. The kett had turned their minds against them. He knew from medical reports and her own statements that Moshae Sjefa had been viciously tortured, and the kett had managed to nearly wipe out her immune system.

As much as one would want to think differently, it wasn't difficult to break a person's mind and make them think and act the way you wanted them to. Evfra had no doubt that that is what the kett had done to the angara in that facility.

Who was to say they hadn't been doing that to every angara they ever took captive?

To his own family.

Dead was better.

Evfra grit his teeth until his jaw hurt. For years he'd hoped that his family was alive somewhere. That he would find them and save them some day. But at the same time he had accepted that they were most likely dead and that he would never see them again. Now he _hoped_ they were dead. The other option....

Evfra growled low and deep in his chest. If they were alive, they had likely been turned into kett if they hadn't been years ago. And if they hadn't been turned into kett, they were likely being tortured. Experimented on.

His eyes stung as a single hot, angry tear rolled from the corner of his eye and down the side of his face. The kett would pay for this. For _everything_. He would make them wish they had never come here. For every drop of angaran blood they spilled he would create a river of theirs.

He had to do better. He had to make the Resistance _better_. The stakes for liberating slave camps were now astronomically higher. Every angara they could free denied the kett a new soldier, but it would be difficult to get more cells off whatever they were doing and focused on the slave camps. He didn't have the manpower. Recruitment was down and the selfish idiots on Kadara refused to cooperate, choosing instead to wallow in chaos and cheap booze. He had to do something. Had to find a way.

Evfra lowered his hands and let out a shaking breath. He'd had enough restless nights filled with unending thoughts to know when he wouldn't be getting any sleep. And this time, the thoughts were more painful than he wanted to deal with.

Tossing the blankets to the side Evfra sat up and swung his legs off the side of the bed. He needed to get his mind off of it all. The only way he knew how to do that was to keep himself busy.

Tired but unable to sleep he dressed for the day and left for Resistance HQ. He'd get an early start on his morning backlog before anyone else showed up. With any luck it would be enough to keep his mind off the possible fate of his lost family.


End file.
